


Something To Hope For

by WardenoftheNorth



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, F/F, F/M, Hospitals, M/M, Recovery, Romance, fifth year au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 13:09:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29858592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WardenoftheNorth/pseuds/WardenoftheNorth
Summary: Harry awoke in St Mungo's Hospital in mid-July. They say that he and Cedric took the cup together and they say that they both returned. They say that Harry had suffered more than any person should. He remembered none of it.
Relationships: Daphne Greengrass/Harry Potter, Harry Potter & Astoria Greengrass
Comments: 17
Kudos: 70





	1. The Day The Rain Came

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone!
> 
> Sorry for the break in-between posting anything. I had a little break, but I'm back to writing again.
> 
> This new idea came around during the time away, and I'm looking forward to posting the idea. It's definitely a departure from what I usually write, but it's one I'm excited to take on. There'll still be lightness and fun, but they might be a little bit further down the road on this one.
> 
> The biggest thanks go to the people that had a hand in editing and beta-reading this work, all found through the wonderful Flowerpot Discord. So, the greatest thanks go to: Raph, Emp, ThisDude, TheMightyClark, Michal (HonorverseFan), and the wonderful Nauze. Thank you guys, your support is invaluable. A big thanks go to Lib too, for whom I wouldn't have written this anywhere near as quickly without him. IYKYK.
> 
> Let me know what you thought with a review. They're a great inspiration to write more.
> 
> Here it is!

The summer of 1995 was one of oppressive heat; heat utterly unwelcome along England's shores. Rain abandoned the skies for weeks on end, the swelter inescapable. While novel at the beginning of the season, the temperature soon grew unending and by July every man, woman, and child had more than had their fill of the unbroken warmth.

And so, the dawning of the 24th of July was truly an oasis of respite to everyone as, for the first time in nearly a month, the sun did not meet clear skies in its first appearance, but storming clouds and swirling winds. The heat broke on that morning, the rain a balm to all.

The rain, meteorologists came to decide, was one born from the cooler winds of the North Sea, sweeping across the length of the British Isles. It began in the northernmost point of Scotland, sweeping downward, meeting Newcastle, Manchester, and Nottingham in its path to the south coast and back out into the Atlantic.

London's drought was broken at midday, and straight away, the populous ceased bemoaning their purgatory of a working week in professional clothing to bemoan their misfortune of a lunch break without an umbrella. Even in the more whimsical corners of the city, where wands were held rather than phones, they were forced indoors in their free hours.

For some, the day remained unchanged though. Even as the rain pattered against the glass windows and red bricks of St Mungo's Hospital, it did not change nor shift. The healers and nurses moved as they always had; as they always would do. Carefully and thoroughly.

Yet, on the Adolescent's Ward, there was a shift. In a bed at the furthest corner of the room, a body which had remained unmoved for as long as the sky remained clear, began to turn. Dark hair, before so still in restless sleep, shifted left and right as the boy to whom it belonged shifted, left and right.

And, just as the hour ended, and afternoon truly began, his eyelids blinked open to reveal piercing eyes, green and wild.

* * *

Harry awoke slowly, with sleep still clinging to his every effort to greet the world again. His body felt numb, his nerves distant to his mind's awareness. Every motion took an age to happen, every gesture of his hands an argument.

Rain tapped against the window by his side. Under some duress, he pushed his eyes open to greet the day. Yet, as he did, and a blurry world appeared, he came to realise that he didn't recognise the blur at all.

The walls, white and faultless, were so very nearly those of Hogwarts Infirmary and yet so utterly not them at all. The roof didn't stretch quite as high, nor did Madam Pomfrey's office peek out from the corner. And, as he flitted his eyes toward the window, he didn't see the infinity of green that was the castle grounds, but rather the towers of grey that could only signify a city sprawling ever outward.

Sensation slowly returned to him, part by part. First though came his throat, sawdust dry and catching. He thought to call out for someone, _anyone_ , to bring water, but even the thought scraped against his sensitive nerves. Harry reached outward, hoping to find a glass of something, anything. He found nothing.

Yet, no sooner did urgency return to Harry's motion than was his panic quelled as from nothing, a glass appeared in his grasp which he brought to his lips, relieved. He drew deep breaths after he did, the first tribulation of the day behind him.

"Afternoon, Mr Potter," came a voice beside him, its owner having materialised in his brief distraction. "Welcome back to the world of the living."

Harry coughed, water splashing around the back of his throat as he did. He looked up to attempt to meet the blur's eyes. With a free hand, he reached around once more, hoping to find his glasses. "P-pardon?"

"For the past twenty-nine days, you've been in a coma," the voice continued to explain. "Beginning on the twenty-fifth of June and ending about an hour ago. Today is the twenty-fourth of July if you were curious, and you're currently within St Mungo's Hospital. I'm Healer Davis." She paused. "Looking for these?"

Before Harry could respond, a wrinkled hand took his and folded his fingers around his glasses. Harry nodded and, after several attempts, managed to return his eyesight to its best state. Where once was a blur, now stood a woman in healer's attire. "T-thank you."

His healer gave a brief, small smile. "Due to the nature of your condition, in order to ensure your health and comfort, you've been placed under several sensory deprivation charms. Mostly to ensure that, in your sleep, you did not exacerbate your injuries." From the top pocket of her cloak, she pulled forth her wand and cast a spell into the air above his head. "Over the next few days, you'll begin to feel your senses return to you." She met his eyes for the first time. "This, I'm sorry to say, will bring with it a return of pain from your injuries. We hope that you shan't need a greater amount of pain-relieving potions than those currently administered, though if you feel that you do, please don't hesitate to notify me or any of the staff."

Harry nodded, though as he did his eyebrows began to knit together. "Thank you," he began by saying. He took another gulp of water. "Healer Davis?" he did then last ask. "How did I get here?"

Healer Davis stilled where she stood then, at once, she suddenly sat into the chair beside his bed. "I think that's something best answered by someone else," she began. Before Harry could argue, she added. "What's the last thing that you remember?"

Harry closed his heavy eyelids again, forcing his mind back into recollection. "I remember it being the third task the day after tomorrow," he said, tapping at his mattress gently with his fingertips. "I remember them putting a maze on the quidditch pitch."

"Anything else?"

"My friends were arguing. Hermione kept telling Ron off for playing chess with me," he said, a smile coming to his face briefly. "Said he was distracting me from the tournament." His eyes snapped open. "The task happened, didn't it?"

Healer Davis stilled again, before nodding once.

Harry coughed again. "That's why I'm here, isn't it?"

She nodded once more. "I can't tell you much more, as I don't know much more," she said. "To my knowledge, Cedric Diggory and yourself shared first place by taking a trophy at the same time, which was a portkey. However, you disappeared the moment you touched it. Cedric appeared almost immediately after with the trophy, and you appeared sometime later. Unconscious." Healer Davis cleared her throat. "You awoke almost immediately, in great discomfort, speaking unintelligibly, such that you were then placed in a magical coma by Healer Pomfrey until you were suitably stable."

Harry could feel his eyes widening behind his glasses. It'd taken him a _month_ to regain 'stability'.

"According to our diagnostics, you arrived suffering from blunt force trauma to the chest and lower back, as well as deep lacerations upon the wrists and ankles, likely caused by unnatural binding," Healer Davis said, before drawing a slight breath. "Your body was demonstrating the usual aftereffects of the Cruciatus Curse, such as tremors, partial loss of cognitive function, sustained muscular pain and long-lasting physical weakness." She leaned forward. "Has that helped to jog your memory at all?"

Harry could only shake his head.

"I understand that this is a lot to take in, but I thought it best that, if you were to know, you ought to know it now," Healer Davis said. She stood up then, casting Harry a final, apologetic look. "I'll be seeing to the other patients now, but if you have something you need, don't hesitate to ring the bell." She pointed toward the desk beside him, where a bell stood. "Feel free to get some rest in the meantime." She met his eyes a final time. "I'm sorry that this has happened to you, Harry."

The thought of sleep after a month's worth ought to have sounded ridiculous to Harry, but he could think of nothing he wanted more. His eyes were already heavy and closed without his notice.

* * *

When Harry woke again, the skies were still grey, and he had no way of telling whether a minute, an hour or a day had passed. His glasses had not fallen off in his sleep and so he awoke with clear vision. Clear vision, and yet thoughts still muddled.

The room was empty, he realised amongst his cloudy thoughts. There were two rows of twenty beds, and yet his was the only one occupied in so far as he could see. White walls, and white bedsheets his only company. Sensation had not returned to him by then, either. His skin still felt oddly distant to his nerves.

He wondered if anyone had attempted to send letters to him in his sleep. Slowly, he tilted his head toward his bedside table, hoping to find letters from Ron and Hermione, or even perhaps Dumbledore. He found nothing except his wand and that bell; not even the day's newspaper to read.

And, during his perusal, Healer Davis had returned once more, a tray of food in hand.

"Good morning, Harry," she said. "It's the twenty-fifth if you were curious." She leaned forward to gently place the tray on his lap. Harry nodded his acceptance. "We've been feeding you nutrient potions while you were unconscious, but it would be best for your recovery if you started to eat solid foods again."

"Am I still on those pain potions?" Harry asked, his eyes dipping down to look at his food. Roast beef and mashed potatoes with gravy. After a moment, he lifted his hand to take hold of his fork. "Everything still feels numb."

Healer Davis swallowed a breath. "Due to the nature of your condition, with its cause being the Cruciatus Curse, and what looks to be a sustained one at that, we thought it best to reduce their use slowly, so that we may gain a more full understanding of your case to proceed," she explained. "We began to do this while you were sleeping, but you had a strong physical reaction to this, so we decided for this to be done slightly more slowly than we had originally intended."

Harry shook his head in disbelief. "I don't remember any of that."

"You didn't experience any change as you were sleeping?" she asked. "No sudden alterations in dreams?"

"Nothing," he said, shaking his head once more. "I didn't dream at all."

"Well," began Healer Davis, the word said slowly. "The full effects of that particular spell are not widely understood; certainly their effects on the brain aren't." She brought her hands together in a quiet clap. "However, your wakefulness is definitely a very good sign. This means that the worst has been averted and that it's highly likely you will make a good recovery."

Harry didn't allow those words to settle.

"Has anyone sent any letters while I've been out?" he asked, his voice sounding sharp in the immaculately white room. He looked up to meet the healer's eyes.

She pressed her lips together. "I suspect they were waiting until you've woken up, before reaching out," she offered. Her face brightened, then. "However, your familiar, Hedwig, is in the owlery with the hospital's owls, if you'd like to reach out yourself."

Harry gave a slight smile at the news.

"Have any of your memories returned to you?" she asked.

"The last thing I remember is still two days before," Harry reaffirmed. "Can I go to the owlery?"

"Definitely, and we can see if you're able to walk, too. Otherwise, I'll get you a wheelchair," Healer Davis said. "I'll come back when you've had your meal."

Harry nodded, and she left at once. He was slow to eat, the food bland, and he hardly made a dent into the meal before he became full.

The moment he was done, his healer returned.

"It's to be expected that your appetite will be diminished after such a length of time without proper digestion," the Healer explained. "While they supply you with enough energy, they aren't processed by the enzymes in the intestine, but rather by the liver, and so your stomach will have shrunk."

Harry gripped the edge of his bed as tightly as he could manage, preparing to force himself to his feet. "I want to go to see Hedwig now," he told her.

Though it took a moment, Harry managed to throw his legs to one side of the bed. It took him several efforts, but he did manage to lock his arms and press himself up; his arms shook with the effort of doing so, his arms thin and pale to his own eyes.

He looked down to himself, and though his body was obscured by the gown the hospital had given him, he could see that he was far slighter than he'd been. He reached up, to pass his hands over his collarbone, and found that the bone protruded slightly more than it had before.

"There is a limit to the quantity of potions that could be absorbed by your liver properly at any time," Healer Davis said, her eyes watchful over him. Harry tried to take a step, though his footing faltered as he did and the healer instinctively reached out to support him. "The proper treatment of the Cruciatus Curse is very intensive in its use of potions, and so we are unable to safely provide you with the full regiment of nutritional supplements without adversely affecting your recovery and damaging your liver."

Harry tried to take another step and faltered again.

"While at the lower end of acceptable, over time after eating solid foods your weight should return to a more healthy range," Healer Davis said, already beginning to turn toward the door. "I'll get you that wheelchair."

Harry shook his head at her retreating form. "No, I can do this," he said. He took another step, his footing still unsure, but he managed to make it. His stance was wobbly but capable.

Healer Davis rushed over, her hands extended as if to catch him, though she pulled away just as quickly. "Are you sure you don't want me to grab a wheelchair?" She rested her hands on her hips. "Just to be on the safe side."

He shook his head. "I can walk." He gritted his teeth and did exactly that.

With each step, he threatened to fall, his legs shaking even under his own slight weight, though he never did. Even as pain jolted along his muscles, he stood firm to it. Healer Davis dipped closely on occasion, ready to catch him after his seemingly inevitable fall, but she never did have to.

To distract himself from the discomfort, he looked along the bays of beds. As he'd assumed, they were empty.

"We usually only have one or two people staying here overnight in the Adolescent's Ward," Healer Davis explained upon his perusal. "We often go weeks without anyone here, usually until someone's had an accident up at Hogwarts. Sometimes, if there's been a big raid with the Aurors and A&E can't fit everyone, they'll bring the non-urgent cases to this ward, but hopefully that won't happen while you're here."

Walking, after a month's sabbatical, was dizzying. Harry's feet seemed to meet the floor at odd intervals and at odd paces. He felt like he'd been transplanted into someone else's body. The hospital, in its blankness, only served to confuse him more for its constant unchanging did not allow for him to mark his motion with any consistency. The world, for a moment, appeared endless, his struggle unending.

Yet they did reach the door, even in this odd, looping density of time. Healer Davis opened it to reveal more white walls, though at last they were broken with posters and noticeboards, and the occasional door to other rooms, undoubtedly filled with more blank spaces.

The hallways were devoid of people too, which struck Harry as odd. On the one occasion that he'd been to a muggle hospital for a broken arm when he was eight, the corridors had been filled with fretted pacing.

"Most people don't walk around the hospital, you know," Healer Davis said, quick to fill the air. "The staff are allowed to apparate around the premises and most people that stay here are not able to walk freely. The only ones that do are the visitors to our patients, but it's not visiting hours for a little while yet."

Harry nodded and allowed himself to be guided toward the owlery behind his healer's practised steps. Thankfully, they were already on the highest floor, and so he wasn't required to climb any steps, as that would've undoubtedly been a step too far.

Healer Davis opened the door to the owlery the moment they reached it, allowing Harry to walk in, though not following him, content instead to stand outside and watch him carefully. The sight she revealed was one almost identical to one he'd seen at Hogwarts. Scores of owls and, stood to herself, Hedwig.

In a newfound burst of energy, he made quick strides to greet his long-time friend, a smile blooming on his face.

"I've missed you," Harry said, before raising his arm to cough, his throat still sore. After his rushed paces, his lungs felt hollow. To distract himself, he passed his free hand along her feathers, his touch familiar. "Have you seen Pigwidgeon?" Hedwig gave a gentle coo under his touch, before shaking her head. "Fawkes?"

She shook her head again.

"Oh," Harry said. "Well, I'll be back soon with a few things to send. Would that be alright?"

Hedwig nodded quickly, before budging her head against his hand, bringing a smile to Harry.

"It's good to see you again," he said. He didn't speak again after that, though he did stay for a while, content to be with someone he knew, in familiar circumstances.

* * *

Healer Davis left Harry to his own devices after that, likely to care for her other patients. Before she left though, she did leave him with parchment and a quill, and so he set about writing letters to Ron, Hermione, and Sirius.

To Ron and Hermione, he wrote short correspondences. Mostly to say that he was awake and alive, and that they were free to visit should they want to. He didn't ask them to write what had happened in the final task; from what he'd gathered, he'd prefer for that news to come in person.

To Sirius, under a pseudonym, he asked whether he'd found a home to stay in and that Harry really hoped that he had, if only so that he was allowed a reprieve from his constant moving from place to place. As, if there was anything that his current situation had informed him of, it was the exhaustion of movement.

He thought to write to Professor Dumbledore, though he decided against it. The Headmaster had a knack for arriving at Harry's side whenever he was most required. He would arrive at some point, of that Harry was totally sure.

He set off to the owlery after he was finished, the effort no less arduous than before. Hedwig was there for him again, and Harry stayed with her for a while before she set off on her journeys. He didn't say a great deal, as he didn't feel like he had much to say, but he enjoyed the silence with her.

When he returned to the ward, Healer Davis was there waiting for him.

"You ought to have told me you were going," she said, lifting the bell on his bedside table so that it filled his vision. "We have this for a reason."

"I think I'm able to walk twenty yards without supervision."

Healer Davis shook her head. "Sustained use of the Cruciatus Curse causes significant damage to your nervous system, and the recovery from this damage is often unclear," she said, the words quick to come. The words straight from a medical journal, no doubt. "Often, even months afterwards, victims have been known to collapse, seemingly for no reason."

"Well, I'm fine now, aren't I?" Harry argued. He shuffled around her, returning to sit back on his bed.

"That isn't a healthy attitude to take with this, Mr Potter," she returned, folding her arms. "You can't keep risking your own health without cause. It's the attitude of someone that doesn't wish to get better, and I have no interest in treating someone that doesn't wish to be treated."

"Fine," Harry said, falling into his bed. He picked up the bell. "I'll ring this in future." He did just that, though no sound emerged. The Healer's ears pricked up at the motion, though. "I just wanted to know why I was here in the first place since you're not telling me."

She sighed. "I've told you everything that I know for certain," Healer Davis defended. "And it's not my duty to talk about the circumstances of your arrival. My job is to heal you. That's why I'm here now, actually."

From the pocket of her robe, Healer Davis pulled out three small vials, all holding colourless liquids that Harry came to realise were his potions.

"It's time for your treatment," Healer Davis said, her voice devoid of tone. "After your less than positive reaction yesterday, I thought it best to try to lower your dosage while you were awake. This way we have a greater understanding of the exact severity of your current ailments."

Harry nodded in agreement. The sooner he stopped taking those potions, the sooner he could leave.

Healer Davis passed over the vials.

"With this dosage, we're mostly aiming to return a higher sense of feeling to your body," she explained, "This _shouldn't_ come with any great sense of pain, but you will begin to feel a greater sense of touch. Parts of your body that have received treatment will feel tender; your arms and lower back, for example." She pressed her lips together. "If you are to suffer still from shaking or tremors, they will most likely begin soon. However, these changes are all necessary for your recovery, as we first need to understand what your ailments are in order to treat them. Okay?"

"Okay," Harry agreed. He pulled off the tops of all three vials and swallowed their contents at once. They tasted of nothing. "How quickly will I feel any change?"

"Within the hour," Healer Davis told him. She reached over to take the empty vials from his hands. "These potions act far quicker than any muggle medicines you might've taken."

"And how long do you think it'll be until I'll be able to leave?"

"That," Healer Davis said, taking a step toward the door, "is entirely up to you. There isn't a great deal of precedent in such cases of the Cruciatus Curse upon adolescents, thank Merlin. Should you react positively to a reduction in your potions, it might well be a week. If you don't, it will likely be longer. It's best not to put a set date on these things." She reached for the door. "Anything else you require? A book maybe?"

"The day's paper, if you wouldn't mind."

She pressed her lips together. "If you're sure."

Harry nodded, and Healer Davis left, leaving Harry staring at the ceiling, waiting for whatever was to come, to come.

The tips of his fingers on his right hand tapped upon the white bedsheets, the rhythm consistent. In the quiet of that room, the noise grew, amplified by its solitary peerlessness. It grew grating then even to Harry's own ears, and so he quickened its pace until it mirrored the likely pattering of the rain upon the window. Harry pretended that was what it was.

Against his own willing, the drumming of his fingers grew erratic. Sometimes the tapping was gentle, sometimes the touch came sharply and suddenly, his own rhythm lost. He tried to return to that even speed, yet the effort only brought his arm to shake. He tried to stop that too, his hand forming into a fist, but that only served to make him shake more.

Harry threw his hand against the bed in irritation. He relaxed his hand, but still, the shaking persisted.

They were tremors, he realised. He leaned across his body to get the glass of water from his bedside table. The water shook within the glass until it threatened to tip out of the glass and splash onto his duvet, and so he moved it to his left hand.

He stared back to the ceiling. Hopefully the healer would be there soon with the paper.

* * *

Healer Davis did arrive soon, though not with the Daily Prophet.

"It's visiting hours," she said, peeking her head around the door. "And, there's someone here to see you."

Harry sat up, the movement pinching at his lower back. He couldn't wait to see Ron and Hermione.

Yet, when the door opened, neither Ron nor Hermione appeared.

Cedric Diggory gave an awkward wave as he entered the room, his other hand concealed behind his back. His eyes, it seemed, didn't know where to look, and so they shifted around the room, pointedly looking anywhere except for meeting Harry's eyes.

Harry fought the urge to sigh in disappointment.

"Hi," Cedric said, before pulling his arm from behind his back to reveal a box of chocolates. They were accompanied with a card which Harry could read, even from the distance, to say ' _Get Well Soon'_. He thrust the box toward Harry, placing it at the foot of his bed. "I got you these."

Harry nodded, short of anything to say.

"I'll leave you to it," Healer Davis said. She cast a look toward the bell. "If anything happens, you know what to do."

In her retreat, she shut the door behind her with a crack, the noise only serving to jolt both Harry and Cedric into awareness.

Cedric's voice came to him first. "So-"

"-What happened that night?" Harry asked, his words passing over Cedric's.

"You don't know?"

Harry shook his head. He wished to tap his fingers absently, though his hands shook too much to do so. "Feel like I know nothing."

Cedric stood up tall, his spine straight. "Well, I can't say I know much of what happened either," he began by saying. He brought his palms together to wring out his hands. "It was all such a blur. The-the thing is, well, the thing is that we both made our way to the cup, and we decided to take it together. Do you remember that?"

There was a pleading look in Cedric's eyes. "Not at all," Harry told him.

"Well," Cedric said, mostly to himself, his body seeming to deflate. "Well, when we took the cup, it turned out to be a portkey, and it took us to this…graveyard."

"Right," Harry said, with an affirmative nod.

"And then, then you heard this voice that you seemed to recognise," Cedric said, his hands refusing to still despite his insistent wringing. "So, you summoned the Cup toward me, and the next thing I know, I'm back at Hogwarts. A few hours passed, and then you came back. You were screaming, and you were bleeding, but you kept repeating the same thing over and over. He's back, he's back, he's back."

"Did I say _who_ was back?" Harry asked quietly, though his voice seemed to hold an echo as it rang out into the room.

"Yeah you did," Cedric said. "It was Voldemort."

"How did I get back?" Harry asked. Through Hogwarts' protections too as well, somehow.

"No one knows," Cedric said. "No one's really asked, to be honest. They seemed to think it was just you being you."

Harry closed his eyes briefly, drawing a sharp breath. The words weren't a shock as he knew, in some dim and distant part of himself, that it always seemed to be _him_ , in one form or another.

"So that's who did all this to me," Harry muttered to himself, a glance spared toward his forearms, upon which scars were littered that even the dutiful care of St Mungo's hadn't managed to heal. "Were you alright then? In the end?"

Cedric nodded. "Yeah, I was fine."

"And Krum and Delacour?"

Cedric winced. "Not so much," he told Harry, his hand pushing the sleeve up his arm to scratch, fretted, at the skin beneath. "Fleur had to retire after a minute; apparently all the acromantula they'd put in the maze just swarmed her; she had to go straight back to Paris to get a specialist to treat her. And Krum." He paused deliberately. "Krum was put under the Imperius Curse and took one step into the maze, and immediately left and kept walking. Someone finally stopped him before he reached Edinburgh, and his head still isn't quite right. People say he's going to miss the start of next season.

"There's one last thing," Cedric said, bracing his hands upon the metal frame at the end of Harry's bed. "Everyone heard what you said, about Voldemort. Not everyone liked it. And not everyone believed you. Most people just said it was you going mad, after what had happened to you."

"But what else could it be?" Harry argued, his jaw twitching beneath his pale skin. "This doesn't happen by accident, does it?"

"According to them it does," Cedric told him. "They said there's more than one dark wizard in the world and more than one person that would want to get their name off your back. They could have a point, too."

"So what do you believe?"

"Me?" Cedric asked, the word falling from him.

"Yeah," Harry agreed. "You."

"All I know is how you changed the moment you heard that voice," Cedric said. "And if there's anyone that knows when Voldemort's back, it's you. Cruciatus or not."

Harry nodded once, satisfied. "How've you been, then?" he then asked.

"Shouldn't I be asking you that?" Cedric asked, rather than answered. He took a stride toward the chair at Harry's side, but only sat upon it when Harry nodded.

"I don't remember how I've been," Harry replied, earnest. "Been out of it until yesterday."

"I know. My mum works here; it's how I found out."

Harry smiled. "Not printing my blood tests on the front page of the Prophet, are they?"

Cedric winced. "Not quite," he said. "But yeah, not bad at all. Spent a lot of time with Cho, actually."

Harry frowned.

"Puddlemere won the league, by the way," Cedric rushed to add, watchful as he was of Harry. "You support them, right, same as me?" Cedric grinned. "Your old captain was apparently the standout. Wood played for England in a couple of friendlies, by the way."

Harry gave a false smile. "That's great," he said, quietly. His eyes dipped to look at his right hand, its motion still endless and erratic. Gripping tightly only hurt. "Thanks for coming, Cedric."

"Of course," he said. "I'm sure once the word gets out, you won't be able to move for visitors." He stood. "You can write to me if you'd want to. Not that you have to, but if you want the Puddlemere results, or if you just want someone to talk to. Y'know, champion to champion."

"Thanks," Harry said, his voice earnest again.

Cedric gave one last polite, awkward wave, before making strides toward the door, his trainers squeaking upon the tiles as he walked, the room silent but for it.

Silent, and then.

"Kill the spare," Harry said, his voice holding a strange, echoing timbre. "That's what he said, wasn't it?" The focus of his eyes disappearing far away into the distance, a million miles away, his green eyes foggy. "Kill the spare and take the other."

Cedric's eyes dipped to the floor. "Yeah," he said, though his heavy silence was enough.

"First thing I remember and it's that."

"That's the only thing I remember of the graveyard, I promise. Before I even realised, you'd summoned the cup toward me," Cedric said, the words tumbling from him. "I'm sorry."

Harry shook his head almost absently. "It's not your fault."

Cedric shifted on his feet. "He didn't do it, Harry," he said, before pointing to himself. "The spare survived."

Harry looked down toward himself, at his weakened body. From what he could gather, Voldemort had tried his hardest to change that.

"I almost forgot," Cedric said then, his voice at odds with the air of the room. "I brought you something else too." He reached into the pocket of his jacket to pull out a cheque. "They said because I got back first, I was the real winner, but seeing as how we both took the cup at the same time, I think it's only fair you get your half."

Harry shook his head. "You don't have to do that."

Cedric walked back toward Harry, to place the cheque on his bedside table. "You earned it," he said, with a pitiful look down at him. "God knows you earned it."

The door slammed shut before he could think to argue or throw the cheque back at Cedric. Instead, he picked it up, and read its front.

Five-hundred galleons, he'd apparently earned. Five-hundred galleons for a month of his life.

It hardly seemed fair to him.


	2. come up and see me, make me smile

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone!
> 
> So, here's the next chapter. Let me know what you thought with a review.
> 
> Biggest thanks go to Raph, Emp, Umbrador, MightyClark, Darkened Void, Michal, and Nauze. You're the best beta-readers I could ask for.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy. Here it is!

The reduction of his medication did not bring with it a great sense of pain, Harry came to realise. Each fragment of sensation returned to his control did not bring with it any agony, muted or not. All of him did ache, but he did not hurt.

Truly, the greatest shift caused by this newfound awareness was that comfort had begun to utterly evade him. There was no form he could take, be that standing, lying or sitting, that would allow him to find even the most minute of reprieve. The fibres of his skin seemed to itch at all moments, immovably so.

It seemed at every possible interval, a new aspect of his body grew to demand his attention, such that he could never sit still, even as his tired, newly healed body demanded that of him. With flagging efforts, he tossed and turned upon the hospital bed, his motion slow and yet never, ever finding rest.

The hospital's healers came by at regular intervals with fresh vials of potions. After a day or so of his newfound regimen, Harry found that he was able to taste again, though that was by no means a blessing as all he truly used that for was said potions. Yet still, he even grew to welcome their occasional arrival, as it broke the restless monotony.

For his body, the month of rest was decidedly enough, and so Harry was gifted with the unbroken sight of the sunrise and sunset on the days following, and the peace of the darkness of night, that too unbroken.

Healer Davis never did bring a copy of the Daily Prophet. She did find several fiction books for him to read, though he found that he lacked the concentration to be taken by any of them. He could never seem to get more than a few words into every sentence before his mind was altogether elsewhere.

There had been no further letters forthcoming, nor had there been any visitors. Harry found that he didn't blame them. The summer looked lovely through the window; not something that should be wasted inside a hospital, if you could help it.

With little else to do, Harry did write another letter to Ron and Hermione, though he quickly found himself at a loss for what exactly he wished to know. He found himself forced to write rather messily with his left hand rather than his right, as his right hand was not then able to keep a grip on a quill for any longer than a moment. He hoped that such a measure was temporary, as the last thing he needed was to re-learn four years' worth of wand motions, mirrored.

* * *

It was nearing two full days of only blinking sleep when Healer Diggory, Cedric's mum, announced that he was to have another visitor, the sound of her entry ending his half-hearted attempt to read a novella under the natural light of the midday sun.

"Albus Dumbledore is here to see you," she said, her words passing over the latest vials of potions. They were not filled to the brim, as the ones had been before; perhaps only three-quarters full. "I did mention that visiting time wasn't for another two hours, but he was very insistent."

A quiet part of Harry's mind wished that he'd been insistent days earlier, though he did nod in a silent invitation to allow the Headmaster to enter. The moment he did, the ward seemed to halve in size in the wake of his presence. There would never be a room that Dumbledore could not fill all by himself, it seemed.

Even in a place as sterile as St Mungo's, the man still deemed it fit to wear the most garish robes imaginable; the colours made all the more alarming by the blank canvas they were set against, the fluorescent purples and incandescent pinks made all the odder.

Yet, despite the brightness of his attire, his face appeared drained of all colour; his skin held an unhealthy pallor that appeared to grow greyer with each passing moment. Dumbledore's eyes, through his half-mooned glasses, looked as tired as Harry felt.

Harry imagined that they were likely living on similar sleep schedules.

"It's good to see you've finally woken up, Harry," Dumbledore said, casting a brief glance toward Healer Davis. She left the room without another word. "I fear we have a great deal to discuss."

Without waiting for Harry to respond, Dumbledore retrieved his wand and directed its focus toward every corner of the room. He began to mutter underneath his breath, speaking words Harry had never heard before. Suddenly, a pale blue light left the tip of his wand, casting a thin mist over the room that blanketed all that it contained.

"That is some relief," Dumbledore said, at last, his words entirely meant for his own ears. "The protections placed upon this hospital are really quite amazing." He lifted his head quite sharply then, seemingly reminded as he did so that he was not alone in the room. "I do apologise, Harry, but I fear that matters of safety must take precedent before anything else. Certainly, in times such as these"

Harry fought the urge to sigh by absentmindedly twisting the hem of his duvet between his palms. "What's going on?" he asked, for what felt like the hundredth time in his stay at the hospital. It seemed to be the only thing he ever said.

Dumbledore paused for a moment. "I cast a diagnostic charm over this room. One of Professor Flitwick's creations; the one that earned him his second mastery," he said. He looked briefly toward the chair beside Harry's bed, though quickly decided against sitting within it himself, instead choosing to conjure his own. "It assesses the use of magic in an area and allows the caster to recognise any anomalies used in the area. Within this ward, any magic other than a healing spell would be considered an anomaly. Thankfully, it discovered nothing."

Harry nodded. "So, you can talk freely."

Dumbledore gave him a tired smile. "I don't think I've done that in quite some time, though I will try my best," he said. "I do apologise for not having arrived sooner. I'm sorry to admit this, but other things took precedence."

"Voldemort?" was the only question Harry could think to ask.

Dumbledore stilled. "I fear so," he said. "How much of that night do you recall?"

"I heard his voice; I know I did," Harry said, echoing what he'd learned with Cedric. "I remember getting Cedric to take the portkey, but after that everything else is just blank."

"Then we are both equally in the dark," Dumbledore said. Harry shook his head. "Even to my eyes, you disappeared after taking the portkey, and your reappearance was just as uncharted."

"But how did I get back?" Harry asked, his voice losing any evenness. "I can't even apparate, let alone apparate into Hogwarts."

"Accidental magic, I imagine," Dumbledore told him. "Apparition is the most common form of accidental magic; most often in response to extreme duress." He swiped a hand down his face, appearing to smooth away the worry lines and aged wrinkles on his antique face. "Though I did not expect it, the thought did come to me when you were gone that you were taken, rather than lost. So I temporarily opened the anti-apparition wards in order to allow you to return. An act of hope, mostly."

"And the Cup?" Harry queried. "How did that take us to him?"

Dumbledore took off his glasses and simply shook his head wearily. "I don't know, Harry. I'm ashamed to say it, but it is the truth. I have no idea." He slumped against his conjured chair. "An agent of Voldemort must've entered into the castle, though I don't know how. Tom should not have such control over Hogwarts. He cannot, ever again."

A shade of worry began to cast itself over Harry's mind. If the Headmaster knew as little as this, had been outwitted as clearly as this, how could he do anything but worry?

A prized artefact had been tampered with in plain sight, without a single person noticing. Voldemort had managed to smuggle an agent into Hogwarts and, for the first time, had managed to not be found. Voldemort was back and amassing power in the shadows, growing stronger by the day while they wilted under the sterile lights of St Mungo's Hospital.

That worry existed for a fraction of a moment until it was washed away and replaced by a singular thought.

"So, what are we going to do about it?" Harry asked, leaning to sit upright in his bed, his spine straight despite the flaring irritation his body offered as he did. "Voldemort's back, but he's still just one man."

"One man," Dumbledore echoed. "But with a power behind him that is only growing. The sentiment he symbolises is one that holds a great deal of weight with many people in this country."

"People are afraid of him," Harry said, voicing his train of thought aloud. "Afraid of what happened before happening again." He cleared his throat. "Afraid of what happened to my parents happening to them too, if they stand up to him."

"Most hold no great desire to stand up to him," Dumbledore said. "Most are half-bloods and purebloods. They reason that their lives in his world are not so awful that they would risk everything to fight against it. I've watched them follow this path before, Harry."

Harry was silent after that.

"We, Harry, must face the truth of the matter, I fear," Dumbledore said. "With Voldemort back into the world, war is coming. The fear that Tom Riddle conjures is one too great to allow for anything else. He has laid dormant for fourteen years, but he is no longer resting."

"So," Harry began again. "What are we going to do about it?"

" _You_ will first get better. However long that takes," Dumbledore told him, his tone brooking no arguments. Harry still rankled at his words, dismissive as they were. "I've begun to reach out to some old allies on the continent, hoping to reach their shores before Voldemort does."

"The ICW will have to listen to you about this," Harry stated. "They can't stand by and do nothing."

Dumbledore gave a resigned chuckle. "The ICW doesn't listen to me at all," he said. "The Minister has rescinded my status as a member of the council after my position on Voldemort's return."

"Of course he has," Harry said with an exasperated shake of his head. "So, the Ministry has chosen to hide from the truth."

"The reality they have chosen for themselves is far more comforting," Dumbledore explained. "It is not only the Minister that has chosen to think in such a way, either. Or rather, it is not only his voice that sings the tune." Dumbledore reached into the pocket of his cloak, pulling out a small stack of paper that, at his wandless, wordless command, enlarged to relieve itself to be the day's copy of the Daily Prophet. He passed it toward Harry, who took it with unwillingly shaking hands. "Rita Skeeter and company have taken a similar stance."

The headline, ' _Albus Dumbledore, Fearmonger'_ , caught Harry's eye immediately. A brief skim of its contents illuminated, in no uncertain terms, exactly their faith in Harry's claims regarding Voldemort, and their subsequent view of his health.

"Nobody believes this though, surely," Harry said, nodding toward the newspaper. "How do they think I got here in the first place?"

"An accident. Or another similarly convenient falsehood," Dumbledore said, his voice soft. He sounded tired, to Harry's ears. A faded record that'd grown tuneless. "They think I'm using the cries of a disturbed boy to sway power in my direction." He sighed, the sound hardly making a sound. "I must confess that I don't blame them for this belief. Our truth is hardly one I would accept willingly, were I in their shoes."

Silently, Harry wondered why on Earth the Headmaster was spending so much time pondering life from their perspective. What their world needed then was not another scared member of the public, but a leader. An Albus Dumbledore.

"I think the rest of the world has gone without me long enough," Dumbledore said then, forcing levity into his voice. He stood from his chair and withheld himself from emitting an audible wince at the effort. "I should think I'll be around to see you again soon enough."

Harry gave him a polite, thin-lipped smile. "Thank you, Sir," he said. "If you see Ron and Hermione, could you mention the visiting times here?"

Dumbledore stopped in his tracks, raising a wrinkled hand into the air. "Ah yes, I thought I'd neglected to mention something," he then said. "Your mail is being watched, just as the mail that you send is. As a result, I've asked all of those that might be privy to any sensitive information to refrain from sending any letters until security is returned."

"So, did they get anything that I've sent?"

Dumbledore gave a slight shake of his head. "Hedwig was intercepted before she could leave."

Harry brought a shaking hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Do they know that I'm awake?"

Dumbledore nodded. "They do, though both are currently not within the country, I'm told," he said. "They have both gone on holiday with the Granger family. Greece, I believe. And they have a trusted wizard shadowing them, to ensure their absolute safety."

Harry found himself smiling brightly, happy that his friends were enjoying themselves. "And Sirius?"

"He is safe," was all Dumbledore said on the matter. Given everything, that was more than enough for Harry. "I have every intention of visiting your family later today to inform them of your current wellbeing," Dumbledore continued to say, his words doing a thorough job of pushing Harry's smile almost immediately. "Though difficult, if they would wish for it, I would be more than amenable to transporting them here to visit you."

"That won't be necessary," Harry said quickly. "Better to focus your energy elsewhere, I promise."

"They are your family, Harry."

"I promise, Sir," Harry said. The Headmaster left soon after that, and oddly enough, Harry did manage to find sleep, too, though he wasn't quite sure why. He'd certainly not taken any comfort from the conversation.

* * *

Though Hedwig would not be taking any flights in the near future, or more perhaps because of it, Harry did find himself spending more time in his familiar's presence. The short walk to and from the owlery soon stopped being the absolute limit of his endurance, too, admittedly though that was whilst under the slow pace enforced by any healer that'd been summoned to take him there.

Healer Diggory was most often the one who he found taking him there. She was a tall woman, of a similar height to Harry, and it was clear to anyone who looked that her son had gained most of his features from her. Their smiles equally broad, their eyes holding the same speckled shade of grey.

"How are we feeling today then, Harry?" she began by asking him, as she did on every occasion that she found him under her care. He'd already gotten out of bed before she'd arrived which drew from her a minute frown. "You're supposed to wait until one of us is here before you get up."

Harry nodded, an apologetic look in his eyes enough for her to immediately brighten, her rebuke immediately forgotten as she passed over yet more potions.

"Have you felt any more changes?" she asked as he took them in. He shook his head. "No greater sensation? No pain?"

"No more than after I first started to," he told her. He took a still-unsure step toward the door, earning another momentary frown from Healer Diggory.

"And your sleep?"

"I finally got some," he said. Dumbledore's visit brought with it a return to sleep in the following days, and a great deal of it too. He'd slept for most of those days. "Still no dreams."

"You still _appear_ to be dreaming, though," she said. "Are you sure you don't remember any of it?"

"Certain."

The healer walked them to the door, and down the corridor. "Well, with how they seem, perhaps it's best that you don't remember them. They might only upset you more."

Harry shifted his jaw irritably, already drawing breath to respond, though he refrained from doing so as another noise broke the empty air. It was quiet, though, given the usual silence of those halls, it stood out perfectly clearly.

A family, as much as Harry could tell, was talking quietly amongst themselves at the furthest end of the corridor, grouped around the door nearest to the one that connected to the owlery. They too noticed that they were not alone, and so began to talk yet more softly, until even the keenest of ears could hear only the dimmest of whispers.

Out of a curiosity born from a week of near-total dullness, Harry drew to an immediate silence, even his footfalls forced soft as he tried to listen to their conversation. Yet, no matter how greatly he tried, he gained nothing. It took until they were ten yards away before he even realised he knew who they were. Or rather, he knew who one of them was.

Daphne Greengrass.

Harry doubted that he would've been able to pick out her voice, to begin with; it was not a sound he'd heard often. Certainly, it was not one that he would've likely heard out of a willingness on her part.

It was very difficult to mistake her for another, though. There was no one that looked anything like her, with black hair that flowed in waves and a dramatically pretty face, with high cheekbones and startling blue eyes.

Daphne was a quiet person, as far as Harry could tell. She did not speak unless spoken to and even then only very rarely; she was not one to rise to the challenge of inter-house bickering. She would never put herself forward to answer a Professor's question and she seemed to have the uncanny ability to avoid ever being asked to.

He'd never known quite to make of her. Yet such a thought seemed irrelevant then as she was there, on a hospital ward, biting nervously upon the edge of her sleeve, her blue eyes casting worried glances toward a door, just as her parents did the same.

Those blue eyes flicked toward him as he approached, though only for a moment. Her face did not shift in recognition of him; neither in irritation nor warmth. She just stared blankly at him until he and Healer Diggory reached the owlery.

"It'd be best if you pretended you didn't see that, Harry," Healer Diggory said, the very second the door clasped shut, her voice lacking any of its former warmth.

"Best how?" he asked, not turning to meet her eyes and instead searching the wide, open space to find the white feathers of Hedwig's form. She saved him the trouble by flying to the perch beside him, and so he stroked at the point between her two wings.

"Best, as in the Greengrasses don't want this to be spread around, so respecting their request is the right thing to do," Mrs Diggory said. "The last thing someone in hospital needs is more stress."

"Thanks for telling me," Harry said, sarcastically. "I'd never have known how awful hospitals were otherwise."

Harry heard footfalls begin to land against the stones floor, growing in volume until Healer Diggory was right behind him.

"What did I do to earn that?" she asked, speaking into his back. "All I'm trying to do is help you, Harry."

Harry turned to look at her. "Sorry."

"Look, I know this isn't fun," she placated. "I know you'd rather be anywhere but here, but the fact is that you're here, and while you're here we've got to work together."

He leaned back so that his spine met the metal post that Hedwig perched upon, his form slumping.

"What's up?" she asked, dropping herself down so that she could hold eye contact, even as his eyeline had lowered.

Harry was silent for a moment, considering.

"Nothing," he said eventually. "Just getting a little restless."

"That's understandable," Healer Diggory agreed. "You know there's light at the end of this tunnel though, right?" She gave him a smile. "You have great chances of getting your old life back."

Harry looked down at his right hand. Even then, it would not still.

"There are treatments for that too," Healer Diggory said. "This isn't the end of the world. Not at all. You'll be able to use your wand, or write, or fly a broom."

He didn't allow himself to hope quite yet.

"When you've been taken off all the potions, and we see that it's totally safe for you to be off of them, you'll be free to go," the healer said. "You'll still have appointments for the non-urgent aspects, but you'll be free to leave." She patted his shoulder. "Is there something else?"

"Could you actually get me the Prophet?" he asked. The hand that brushed his shoulder tensed. "I know the kinds of things they're writing about me, and I don't care. I want to know."

She sighed. "I don't think it's best for your wellbeing."

"I want peace of mind."

"Then okay," Healer Diggory agreed. "If you feel it's best, then I will."

* * *

The interesting thing in reading The Daily Prophet, Harry found, was that they didn't know the first thing about him. In truth, what they'd written about him was so far removed from any possible realm of reality that it didn't feel as though he was reading about himself at all.

It seemed in the years of his absence from the wizarding world, they had grown entirely accustomed to writing whatever they wanted about him. He'd first realised that as a first-year, after learning that he was apparently a storybook hero. Now it seemed that this desire had traversed mediums and made its way into their apparent non-fiction.

They claimed then, on the front pages of their premier broadsheet newspaper, that he was a deeply disturbed individual. That he conjured evil beasts of old, and that he spoke in tongues to spirits in other worlds. There had even been an editorial claiming that he was not, in fact, Harry Potter at all, but someone who'd stolen the 'real' Harry's identity, intent upon claiming the Potter name and legacy from its rightful holder.

If only they spent half as much effort in solving their problems as they did in inventing new ones, then Voldemort would be gone within the week.

"Interesting reading is it?" asked Healer Davis, who stood by his bed. Harry hadn't heard her arrival. He looked up, finding the healer already holding out two potions; one fewer than he'd grown accustomed to taking. "We believe that you have progressed beyond the need for pain-relieving potions. It is our expectation that your body has recovered to the fullest extent that potions can offer. The next step is for you to undergo physiotherapy to regain full flexibility and control in your back, arms, and legs."

Harry pushed up the sleeve of his hospital gown, revealing the scars that littered along his right arm. He knew, by the tightness of his skin that if he were to look at his ankles, he'd find the same there too.

"There isn't anything we can do about those, I'm afraid," Healer Davis said, her voice nearing a whisper. "I'm sorry."

Harry shrugged. "They don't hurt."

Healer Davis took back the two glass vials. "The potions you're now taking serve only to attempt to mitigate the damage that was done to your mind," Healer Davis said. "You'll be required to continue taking them for several months, however, you won't need to remain here." She smiled. "We want for you to stay for another week of observation, provided your condition doesn't worsen."

"A week?"

"A week," she confirmed. "You should be able to begin your rehabilitation in that time though, and as the pain-relieving potions fully leave your system, you should find that you have a greater amount of energy, provided you get to sleep without them."

Harry doubted that he would. He'd struggled to sleep _with_ them.

"We also feel that it's safe for you to attempt magic again," Healer Davis said. "Nothing arduous, but we would want to see if your magic has recovered, too."

His hand shot toward his bedside table before he could even think.

By instinct, he held his wand in his right hand, the act holding total familiarity, the wand nothing more than an extension of himself. And, just as his arm shook, the wand shook too. Slightly, at first, and only worsening with every effort he made to correct it.

" _Lumos_ ," Harry intoned, the words familiar to his tongue.

Within him, he could feel the beginnings of energy stirring, flowing from his body, along his arms and through his palm. Harry had not been as acutely aware of his own magic in years; not since the day he'd taken hold of that very wand for the first time.

Yet, just as he willed his magic from his body and through his wand, it stilled completely. From something to nothing in an instant.

" _Lumos_ ," he attempted again to cast. Once more, the magic stirred, yet no matter how forcefully he pushed it from his body, no matter how absolute his will was to bring light into the world through his wand, it never did come. " _Lumos_."

Still, nothing.

"Hmm," offered Healer Davis. "Would you try with your left hand, then?"

Harry did as she asked.

" _Lumos_ ," he said yet again. And, to his own amazement, that surge of energy did not still but rushed from him and through his wand. Light bathed the room; not brightly, not astonishingly, but the light did come.

"That's enough," Healer Davis said, though Harry did not rush to smother the light; he allowed it to linger, savouring the feeling of performing magic. "It would appear that the trauma that you have suffered has left deeper effects than we had originally expected."

"Is this not because of the Cruciatus?"

She shook her head. "I don't believe so. There have been instances where that curse has caused brain trauma sufficient to cause a victim to forget how to form magic, even subconsciously," she explained. "Whatever has happened to you is as a result of something else entirely."

Harry moved the wand between his fingers, attempting to familiarise the other half of his body with its weight and its length. "I suppose I better get used to this."

The look that Healer Davis offered him did not fill him with hope.

"There is a reason why you learn to wield your wand in your dominant hand," she said. "Your magic in its earliest stages requires subconscious control, and so your body naturally orients itself to channel more magic toward the more controlled and composed side of your body." She was quiet then, pausing for a moment. "This may be a novel response to the curse, and if so you should return to the use of your right hand as the other effects diminish. Though if it isn't, you will have to retrain your magic completely. This could take years."

Harry found himself speechless. Four years of progress, of learning, wiped away.

"We will begin immediately with treatment in order to diminish any long-lasting physical effects on your right arm in order to completely rule out the possibility of that being the cause," Healer Davis said, her voice toneless. The sound seemed quiet to Harry's ears. Distant. "Otherwise, it would be wise to plan for a different future than you might perhaps have anticipated."

Oddly enough, Harry found that a small part of him was happy then, though only because he'd not allowed himself to hope quite yet.

* * *

Harry didn't sleep that night. At first, he tossed and turned, though quickly he stopped and just laid still, preferring to count down the seconds until the sun rose again. His body seemed to have grown too tired to even rest.

A different kind of numbness took over him. One that did not remove the aches of his body, but rather pushed them away. His body still suffered, still ached, yet Harry himself did not. Such was the disconnection between mind and body, in truth, that he struggled to even notice a knock on the door.

"Can I come in?" asked a girl's voice through the wooden panelling.

"Most people don't ask," replied Harry, his voice holding the confusion he himself felt. For a moment, he thought he'd drifted off to sleep and had begun to dream, such was the oddness of the request.

There was a click, and the door opened, revealing the girl, holding a candle that she'd recommissioned as a torch. She was short, tiny compared to the door she'd pulled open, with light brown hair and, large, blue eyes upon a small, thin face.

"Can I help you?" Harry asked, sitting up against his pillows.

"Doubt it," she said, her feet shuffling across the tiles until she came to the bed beside his, which she then decided to perch upon. "I doubt you would be laying there if you could."

"I'm sorry," Harry said. He took off his glasses to press his thumbs over his eyelids, smoothing away the tension that'd begun to collect there. "Do I know you?"

"Apology accepted," she said, the candlelight illuminating her grin. Harry fought the urge to roll his eyes. "Astoria."

He didn't know about Astoria. "Harry," he introduced. "Why are you here?"

"To get better," she said. Harry did roll his eyes then, "you?"

"God knows," Harry said. Astoria laughed. "Why are you actually here?"

"I'm bored," she said. "Dying of a curse seems so interesting in stories, then when it happens to you, you realise that it's just a lot of waiting around."

There was a complete nonchalance to her words then, her tone even and unchanging, that just made him laugh, the sound leaving him before he could realise.

"I _knew_ that was funny," Astoria said, as he did. "When I said that to Daphne, she got all pitying and started being way too nice to me."

"You're Daphne's…sister?" he guessed.

"Yup," she said, bobbing her head.

"And you're cursed?" he then asked, his tongue loosened by his restlessness, though still not quite enough to say exactly what he meant to.

"Also, yup," she said. "Healers keep saying I have 'good chances', but I really don't think someone that looks like me has those."

Harry looked over to her again. The light seemed to shift then, her face shifting too until it appeared nearly gaunt, her skin stretched thin over bone and little else. "Do you usually say this to people when you meet them?"

"Why, does it not give off the best first impression?"

"Probably not, no," Harry agreed.

"Well," Astoria began, "I don't get to talk to many people, and everyone I do talk to, like my Mum and Dad, already knows _everything_ about me." She leaned forward, leaning in toward him. "So, why are you actually here?"

"I have no idea," Harry replied, earnest. "Just kinda woke up here, I guess."

Astoria frowned. "That's boring," she said. "I'd hoped you'd snapped. It's what the Daily Prophet is saying."

"They like to lie."

"Yeah, but their lies are interesting," Astoria argued. "That's why people read them. If they printed the truth that you were in hospital feeling sorry for yourself, they'd buy the Quibbler instead."

"I'm not feeling sorry for myself."

"I could see your pout through the door," she teased. "Could see your pout around a corner."

"I'm beginning to see why new people don't come and visit you," Harry said, folding his arms uncomfortably. "And I'm not pouting."

"Tell that to your bottom lip," Astoria said.

Harry stared up toward the ceiling. "Shouldn't you be in your room, dying?"

"Probably," she agreed. "But my family might be there, and there's only so much pity I can look at before I start going crazy."

"I think you're way beyond that."

Astoria laughed. "I get their perspective, I do. Sure, it's all sad and stuff, but really there's not much they can do about it now, is there?" she asked rhetorically, her voice still absolutely even. "I don't even know why they bring me here, honestly. It all seems sort of inevitable, and me being here feels a bit like trying to put out fiendfyre with a water bucket."

"Because they love you," Harry said quietly, his voice quick to come. "They want to be with you for as long as they can."

"I mean, yeah, obviously," she allowed. "But don't they realise that a year I spend here is a million times worse than a week I'd spend at home?" She sighed. "I just wish they'd just let me enjoy myself for a bit."

"What would you do, then?" Harry asked. "If you could leave now, where would you go?"

"Now?" she clarified. "To bed. It's midnight."

Harry sighed. "You could do that now."

"But then I'd miss out on speaking with the great Harry Potter," Astoria said, meeting his eyes to watch irritation bloom there. "I couldn't live with myself if I allowed that to pass me by."

"Well then," he said. "Stay, by all means."

"I don't need your permission, but thanks all the same," Astoria said. "I actually have a few questions for you."

Harry thought for a moment. "Ask away," he then said. "It's not like I'm going anywhere."

Astoria grinned. "Good," she said. "So, I think firstly, I'm just curious as to what it's like waking up every day knowing you're _Harry Potter_. Like, do you wake every morning thinking, 'Merlin, I'm Harry Potter', or is it something that comes and goes?"

He just frowned at her, though all it served to do was make her giggle.

"I bet it must be weird," she said, even as her laughter brought her short of breath. "I don't know if I'd be able to be you, honestly. I think it'd be too distracting."

To his own detriment, she had a contagious laugh; one that made it truly difficult not to smile when heard. "I put my trousers on one leg at a time just like everyone else."

"Yeah, but they're Harry Potter's legs going into Harry Potter's trousers. Do you see the difference?"

Even to his own ears, his name had begun to lose any recognisable meaning. "Not really," he said. "Then again, I am Harry Potter."

"God, who knew Harry Potter was so self-centred," Astoria teased. She waited until the last of her laughter left her before she spoke again. "Okay, so my actual question was more around Hogwarts." Harry nodded. "Daphne keeps saying it's really boring, but I think she's just saying that so I don't feel bad for missing out. So, what is it actually like?"

"The last time I was at Hogwarts I ended up here," he said, looking around the ward. "So, I'd say I have mixed emotions toward it."

"But what is it actually like?" asked Astoria, dissatisfied. "Is it interesting? Is it fun?"

Harry smiled. "Yeah, it's great," he said, his voice beginning to warm in recollection. "Getting to go there is probably the best part of having magic."

Astoria grew expressionless; her face then as unreadable as her sister's always seemed to be. "I wish I got to go when I was younger," she said quietly. "They found out about the curse in the summer I turned eleven. Never even got to get my school robes."

"You're not missing out," Harry said. "They're really uncomfortable, and it's impossible not to look ridiculous wearing a robe."

She laughed through a closed mouth. "You must think everyone looks ridiculous."

"They do," he agreed. "Especially in summer. The robes are so heavy."

Both he and Astoria shared a laugh then, and she drew breath to speak, to likely ask another question, though before she did so the door to the ward opened again, revealing a weary healer to whom Harry had not yet been introduced, her immediate frown upon seeing Astoria made all the more severe because of it.

"I think that's my cue to leave," Astoria said, rising slowly from her seat and walking toward the healer, even before she'd been instructed to. "Nice meeting you, Harry Potter."

"And you, Astoria Greengrass."

She smiled brightly upon hearing her full name. "Feel free to come and see me, make me smile," she said, already side by side with the healer. "You know where I am."

And, as the door shut, and the ward was once more his and his alone, he thought he might do exactly that.


	3. Hanging on in quiet desperation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone!
> 
> So, here's the next chapter. I hope you enjoy it, and let me know what you thought with a review!
> 
> Special thanks go to Raph, Michal, ThisDude, Emp, MightyClark, and Nauze for their help in beta-reading this chapter. You're the best.
> 
> Anyway, here it is!

"So how does your curse work?" Harry asked of Astoria, having knocked upon her door just as she had two nights prior. Sleep still mostly evaded him in the night, the darkness occurring without peace. The lack of pain-relievers did not give him any great waves of newfound energy, but walking was not quite the Herculean effort it once had been. He'd gained enough to walk around the halls unsupervised in his eyes, at the very least.

"It's not contagious, if that's what you're worried about," Astoria said, her legs around swung off the side of the bed the moment he'd opened the door. Her room was large, perhaps fitting of having four beds and likely did before the Greengrasses requested otherwise, with grey walls and large bay windows. Her eyes were wide as she took him in. "I didn't expect you to come."

"I was bored," Harry said. "Thought you'd be bored too."

He was still not able to devote himself to reading the books Healer Davis had brought. He read the Daily Prophet cover to cover, though even that quickly became pointless. They seemed to make the same point every day; almost entirely without variety.

"Difficult not to be. _Here_." She gestured around the room, her arm shaking as she did. By the severity of it, Harry doubted the treatment of spells they'd begun on him would offer much to her. "Only so many white walls you can stare at before you want to see grey instead."

The windows didn't offer a great deal of colour that day, either. The skies over Britain had grown exhausted of the sun's light, turning away from bright blue and toward the black clouds that spelled only long, pouring rain.

"Wanna play Chess?" Astoria asked, drawing Harry's eye away from the dwindling light of the day. "I'm really bad."

Harry smiled, taking the seat beside her bed. "I promise I'm worse."

The thought of Chess, as ever, brought Harry to thinking about Ron and Hermione, and the countless hours they'd spent together; he and Hermione forever losing to Ron. They were likely on a sunny beach somewhere in the Mediterranean, both of them burned red under the unwavering sun.

Harry had missed them the most. More than he'd missed performing magic, even. He just hoped that they would be back, soon.

A loud clacking broke into the air as the pieces shifted into their positions. It was an old set, and so the charms were beginning to wear down, the pieces moving laboriously. Where once the knight's horse would leap a foot in a single bound, now it only trotted.

"In answer to your question," Astoria began, her shaky hand thrusting forward a pawn to begin the game. "I have good days and bad days. Good days; I'm pretty normal. Little bit broken, but not awful. I could probably go to Hogwarts then if I only had those." Harry mirrored what she had done, and for a moment it looked like they knew what they were doing. "On bad days I can't do anything. I have to be fed by someone else, and I can't take any potions for food because I'm on so many already."

"Sorry."

"Don't be," Astoria replied. She brought her knight out and Harry matched her again. "The way I see it; I won't have to go through it for very long anyway." Her knight smashed itself against his pawn, throwing him onto the board in a heap. "Doesn't hurt that much either. Just a bit boring to lay there all day."

"So, you just can't move?" Harry asked curiously. With little else to do, he did exactly as Astoria had, his knight slowly charging to the doom-bound pawn. From his perspective, he could then see the face of the pawn as the knight charged. He didn't seem fussed, his shoulders shrugging as he waited for the attack to come. He'd likely expected it, of course.

"It's some kind of blood curse, apparently," Astoria said. She instructed her Queen to attack Harry's exhausted knight, the piece moving haughtily to her mark. "Does a million little annoying things, but mostly it causes my body to break down wherever it decides to be an arsehole on that given day. Usually, it's my arms or legs, though sometimes it's annoying things like my liver."

"Seems like it's a bit of a prick."

"Doesn't it, though?" Astoria agreed, with a nod. "I really just wish it'd pick one place to torment and stick with it. It's the not knowing that's the worst." Harry nodded, without thought. "Your turn."

With little else to do, Harry told his knight to march back to where it came. A fiendish grin came to Astoria's face then, as she moved her knight to reveal her Queen's attack to Harry's King, allowing her to take his Queen for free, his Queen weeping as it happened.

"I thought you were bad at this," Harry said, upon watching his fate play itself out.

"I am," Astoria said, her eyes joyful as Harry's pieces shook in place fearfully, her grin smug. Most of them looked as though they wanted to run for their lives. "You're just awful."

Harry's King, his side empty of its Queen, looked up to him, pleading with hopeful eyes for him to resign. He would do no such thing. Astoria was much too pleased with herself for that.

"So, what's going on with you?" Astoria asked, her choices endless. It seemed more difficult to lose than win, for her. "Worked out why you're here yet?"

Harry shook his head. Ever since Cedric had brought with him the first epiphany, none had come since. His mind was clear, and yet clear of that night, too. He'd begun to think he'd never know.

"That's a shame," said Astoria. "I was hoping I'd be the first to hear about how you stopped the Death Eaters single-handedly or whatever you did."

"Does that mean you believe me?" he quickly asked. "About what happened?"

"I don't know about that," Astoria denied. "You can't even remember it." She sighed, shifting her Queen to attack Harry's bishop; one of his last pieces still standing. "Yet, if I'm faced with believing anyone _or_ believing Rita Skeeter, I'm always picking the other side. It's really nothing to do with you."

Harry smiled. "If only the rest of the country was so easily persuaded."

Astoria shook her head. "They are," she said. "You've just never tried, and that's what she spends all her time doing." Her queen threw itself over the length of the chessboard, breaking the defences in-front of Harry's king and, with it, the King too. "Checkmate."

"What do you mean?"

"You've lost."

Harry shook his head. "Not about that."

The pieces then slowly placed themselves back into their starting position, though Harry's wore collective frowns directed toward him. He imagined this would have to be their last game, as they would refuse to fight for him afterwards if he lost as handily as he had done in their first game, again.

"I don't know many people, obviously, but the ones I do know don't know you," Astoria explained, her words spoken as though they were obvious. "Still not getting it?" He shook his head once more. "Almost everyone in Britain has never met you. They were told that you saved them, but they never got to put a name to a face properly." She looked him up and down. "Even now, I really can't believe _the_ Harry Potter looks like this."

"What?"

"You're all gangly," Astoria said. "I thought you'd be, y'know, muscular. Strong."

"Sorry for disappointing you."

Astoria waved him away. "That's beside the point," she said, diverting. "People are used to thinking of you as this, like, mythical idea, like Merlin or Father Christmas. The fact that you're not real to them makes it easier for you to be hated. There's nothing tying you to reality in their eyes, so it's just as easy as hating, like, the concept of aeroplanes."

Harry hummed thoughtfully, reclining back in his chair as he did. "You've thought about this a lot."

"I suppose," Astoria agreed. "You know when you have like, imaginary arguments in the shower and you think up the best comebacks?" Harry nodded. "Well, that's essentially all I can really do here."

He grinned at her. "I'm honoured you spend so long thinking about me," he teased. Astoria rolled her eyes. "You do know that aeroplanes are real though, right?"

"No way!" Astoria gasped, slapping her hands over her mouth, literally gobsmacked, before her gaping mouth turned into a glare. "Of course I do. _Most_ wizards don't though, hence the brilliance of my comment. Obviously lost on a simpleton like you, but what can you do?"

Harry lifted his eyes in thought. "I think that means you believe me, though."

"Don't think about it too hard, Aeroplane boy. You'll pop a blood vessel."

* * *

As Harry would soon come to learn, Healer Diggory had the unfortunate trait of arriving into his ward just as he thought he might finally find sleep. Whether it be his eyes just beginning to dip closed as the night's sky turned ink black, or under the mild warmth of the afternoon sun, she always seemed to be there to awaken him completely.

"So, how are we feeling today?" she asked, tiptoeing toward his bed.

"Fine," Harry said, his voice absolutely even, his hand jabbing itself toward his eye so as to clear the cobwebs he'd hoped would form more fully.

Healer Diggory paused for a moment, thoughtfully.

"Well, I'll only be a moment," she said, after her thought. "We're going to start with your treatment for the nerve damage in your right arm."

Yet, Healer Diggory did not bring out yet more potions for Harry to take, as he would've expected. Instead, she retrieved her wand.

"The treatment we'll be doing is actually a charm that I helped to innovate, around twenty years ago," Healer Diggory said. "I need to be very precise with my wand motions, so you're going to have to be a little bit patient with this. Okay?"

Harry raised himself up by his elbows. "So it's just one spell?" he asked. Healer Diggory nodded. "Then why did I need to wait so long?"

"It can't be administered while you're under the effects of pain potions," she explained. "They both affect the nervous system and so administering both at once causes volatile reactions that lead to permanent damage. It's far safer to wait."

By then, Harry truly didn't care about _safety_. He just wanted to leave.

"After your response to this, we should have a clearer understanding of your ability, in the long-term, to use your right arm," Healer Diggory said. "We've also scheduled for you to see a Mind Healer in conjunction with your potions, in order to give you the best chance at recovery." She offered him a commiserating look. "The healer you'll be seeing, Andromeda Tonks, is very sympathetic to your case."

Harry held no doubts as to what she was referring to. Her kindness, it seemed, had not stretched to trust.

"I'm ready," he said.

Healer Diggory began a long, repeated incantation, her wand held highly aloft and tracing an asymmetrical, intricate pattern in the air. Yet, both her words and her magic only washed over him then.

He'd thought, briefly, that it might hurt, though it truly didn't feel of anything. He was neither calmed nor stressed, his body feeling neither stronger nor weaker.

Yet, as her words rolled over upon themselves, a pink light began to shimmer into being around her wand. And, in a gradual tandem, a pink light began to glimmer around Harry, too. Beads of sweat collected upon Healer Diggory's brow, her eyes bunched together and her shoulders stiff with the effort of continually casting the spell.

And, slowly, a painless force began to slide itself upon the inside of the arm, in what felt like the spaces between the sinews. Her magic, Harry could feel, tried desperately to bring together the broken parts within him.

But her magic failed.

Harry looked down at his hand. Still, it shook. And no matter how carefully and how frequently Healer Diggory cast her spell, nothing came to pass. His fate, it seemed, was sealed.

With a gasp, Healer Diggory dropped her arm to her side, the spell ending the moment she did. She swiped her hair back behind her head and, beleaguered, cast what Harry knew to be a diagnostic charm. An unnecessary one, in his eyes.

"I'm sorry, Harry," she said, her words whispered. "It seems that the spell hasn't taken effect in quite the way I had hoped. I'm truly sorry."

Harry shook his head. "Thank you for trying."

He didn't get to sleep at all that night. Instead, he spent the night with his wand in his good hand, tracing spells he'd learned years ago.

* * *

The rain finally gave way on the morning that Harry was first scheduled to meet his Mind Healer, Andromeda. Though it had rained throughout the night, as the sun first raised itself into the sky water did eventually cease its falling, leaving the world with a myriad of colours flowing across the pastel blue skies. The rainbow stretched across the full view of the windows of the Adolescent Ward, from the window nearest to Harry's bed all the way to the very furthest.

His physical health had improved such that he was allowed to stand unsupervised as he waited outside the door of the Healer's office. The notion that victims of the Cruciatus Curse would keel over at random intervals was mostly a cautionary tale, Healer Davis had told him belatedly, and only truly ever a worry in the very old where, in truth, other health factors could've been at cause.

It was odd, Harry thought as he stood waiting, that Healer Diggory had referred to his Mind Healer by her first name. Initially, he had thought that Andromeda was a surname, yet it was not. The name upon the door was engraved ' _Andromeda Tonks, M.M.D'_.

The door opened to reveal the healer; a pretty woman with high cheekbones and light brown hair "I'm Healer Tonks," she introduced, offering him a graceful smile. She swept the door wide open. "Come in."

Harry frowned toward the floor for a moment, before following her.

He found her office to be oddly small; certainly, for one in a building as undoubtedly magical as St Mungo's Hospital. When a Master Warder could double the size of a room with a single extension charm, most wizards did exactly that. Their ceilings rising high and the room vast. Yet, by comparison, Healer Tonks' office was rather cosy. Beyond her desk and four chairs, there was room for little else.

The room felt full too, holding a life that the other parts of the hospital did not. Plants stood upon the window drinking in the sun's light, Lilies, and orchids, and violets. The walls were not a pristine white either, but a gentle purple. Picture frames stood on her desk and a broom stood in the corner.

"Take a seat," she said, her voice soft as she sat, too. "So, how've you been?"

"Fine," he said, automatically. "So, how does this work?"

Healer Tonks laughed for a moment. "You're in a rush," she commented. "Understandably so too. I can't imagine you've had the most fun time recently."

Harry's brow furrowed. "Not much I can do about it, though."

"That doesn't devalue how difficult it has been, though," Healer Tonks replied. "Just because you've not chosen your fate doesn't devalue your struggle. In truth, it makes it all the worse." She stood up for a moment to retrieve two glasses of water, passing one to him. "You're allowed to feel dissatisfied with how things have been, you know. It's not a failure."

Harry drank a mouthful of water, his throat having grown dry. "There's no point in thinking like that, though. Feeling sorry for myself isn't going to solve my problems."

"And what do you feel your problems are then, Harry?" she asked, only to quickly ask. "May I call you Harry?"

He nodded. "I don't know," he said first, taking another drink of water. "Getting better so I can leave here."

Healer Tonks laughed. "Anything else?"

"Voldemort's back," he said, blankly. It took her a moment, though she did flinch slightly. "Feel like that's a pretty big problem."

"Do you think they're _your_ problems, though?"

"Who else's problems could they be?" Harry asked, his voice coming sharply. "I'm the one here. _I'm_ the one that was there when _he_ came back."

His last words were a challenge and they both knew it.

"I'm sorry," Healer Tonks said, her voice as gentle as before. Harry could feel his own breathing begin to grow heavy, his blood pumping, yet she was the picture of calm. "I didn't say that as eloquently as I would've liked to. More water?" Harry nodded and at once his glass was full once more. "My meaning was that both of these problems are really big."

She stopped there, offering Harry an expectant look.

"Yeah?" he prompted

"They really are, right?" Andromeda asked, rhetorically. "Your health is vital, and at the moment, it's not something that you can guarantee by yourself. You need Healers and you need potions." She paused. "Equally, if something as big as You-know-who comes along, it's perhaps not something that you need to solve by yourself. You can look for others to help you."

No one else was there, though. No one but him.

"There's this strange thing about the wizarding world that I've seen," Andromeda continued to say. "Because of what magic offers us, we sometimes feel the need to be an island, to rely on ourselves and only ourselves, but that isn't true. We're still humans, we're still people that thrive on support and community. The fact that we can make clocks dance and that we can travel hundreds of miles in an instant doesn't change that."

Harry took a heavy breath. "I don't really understand why we're talking about this. I thought I was here to get treatment so that I could get my memories back."

"You are," Healer Tonks said, simply.

"I meant magic."

"There is more to healing than just the spells and potions that we can use," Healer Tonks explained. "We may possibly practice a form of magic called Legilimency, where I would, with your permission, go through your mind and attempt to navigate any blockages you may have subconsciously placed there to prevent you from remembering."

"You can read minds?" Harry asked. "That's possible?"

Andromeda nodded. "I hold a mastery upon the subject, in fact," she said. "However, even if that does prove to be a possible solution, and you do regain your memories, there will still be problems. Evidently, you've gone through a very traumatic event, and to fully recuperate from that, you're going to need to work through some issues that will arise."

Harry nodded, though his mind was elsewhere. "So, anyone could learn…Legilimency?" Andromeda, both at his question and to confirm he'd gotten the word right. "What can you do with it?"

Andromeda quirked her head, offering him a curious look. "Usually, it's used in my profession as a method of looking through memories, as well as helping a patient to process thoughts and feelings that they may well be repressing," she explained. "There is its counter magic too, Occlumency, which concerns battling against this magic should harmful forces potentially wish to damage your mind or read your thoughts. We use that too, though mostly passively, as a great deal of it is mediative and improves your general mental health."

"How do I learn that?" he asked immediately, his eyes wide.

"You could learn that with me if you'd like," Healer Tonks offered, her lips quirking upward as Harry's eyes glinted with excitement. "It will definitely help to order your thoughts too, as well as helping you to feel calmer. As an added bonus, if you have trouble sleeping, that should be aided somewhat." She drank from her water; the first time she'd done that in his presence, before speaking again. "It's my duty to heal you and help you in our time together, and we can come to a unified agreement around how best that time is used."

Harry sat straighter in his chair. "Then I need to learn Occlumency," he declared. "I need to be able to protect myself."

"Then we will," Healer Tonks said, giving Harry a brief smile before growing stony-faced. "With one condition. We're going to devote an equal amount of time talking through things too, and I'd like it if you tried to get something out of that time, too. I don't expect you to tell me everything that's going on in your life or your thoughts, but it _is_ my job to help you through these things. I promise it will do you some good."

Her tone was unwavering, and so Harry simply nodded.

"Good," she said, smiling again. "In this first session, I was hoping to get an understanding of you, so that I know how best to proceed with the magical aspect of your treatment. Is that alright?"

Harry nodded. "Yes, Healer Tonks."

"Feel free to call me Andromeda, or Dromeda. I'd rather keep things less distant, and professional," she said. Harry's gaze grew quizzical, though only briefly. "So, if you were to leave this hospital right now, where would you go?"

Harry smiled for a moment, recollecting the occasion he'd asked Astoria the very same thing. "I don't really understand how answering that helps."

Andromeda laughed. "I need to get to know you, Harry," she said, "I need to understand you before I can treat you."

He took a moment to answer

"I suppose the Burrow," Harry said. "Or back to Hogwarts."

"With the Weasleys?" she clarified. Harry nodded. "Have you spent a lot of time there?"

"More than anywhere else other than Hogwarts, yeah." It was only usually a couple of weeks, but they were the times he'd been most fond of, with Ron, and Hermione, and the Weasley Family. They were the only times he'd truly been able to relax; to just exist without a minor or major.

"So, you're close to them?" Andromeda queried. "It's Ron that's your age, right?" Harry nodded, and she reached down to retrieve a notepad and quill. "I'm just going to take a few notes."

"Yeah, Ron's my best mate, same as Hermione," he said, his words caught amongst the soft scratching as the healer quickly wrote upon her page. His words did not come easily, his mind preoccupied with watching her write.

"I bet it was nice to see them when they visit," she said, her eyes not lifting from the page. She finished quickly after that, dropping her quill so that it rested within the binding. "I was in the hospital for a week last year, so not quite as long as you, I know, but even for that time I was counting down the seconds until my daughter and husband visited."

"They haven't visited," Harry said, mildly. "They're on holiday together."

"Oh," she said. Her hand twitched toward her quill but stopped before it reached there. "I'm sorry, that must be hard."

Harry shrugged. "Not really," he said. "I'd much rather they were enjoying themselves than sitting around waiting for me to wake up. Be a bit selfish if I expected them to drop everything they wanted to do just because I couldn't do it, too."

"I don't know that I agree," Andromeda said, her hand darting to write a sentence before stilling. "You shouldn't have to suffer this by yourself, Harry."

"I'm hardly suffering. I spent the whole time asleep."

"But you've spent a week awake, correct?" she asked. "Without a single visitor?"

"I've had visitors," Harry defended. "Cedric, Dumbledore."

Andromeda smiled. "Are you close with Cedric?"

"Sorta," Harry said. They had shared something wholly unique; it was an odd bond, but one that couldn't be discounted, he thought. "What's this about? Do you just want to know who my friends are?" He took a drink of water. "I can just list them. It'd be quicker."

Andromeda laughed quietly. "I'm just trying to understand your circumstances, I think," she explained. "I'm sorry if my inquiry feels misplaced, it's just your case is quite an odd one."

Of course it was. When had anything about his life been anything other than _odd_?

"It seems to me that you might be placing a higher value on other people than they place on you," Andromeda said. "It feels like you're excusing actions toward you that, if they were toward one of your friends, you would never allow."

"That isn't true," Harry argued, his jaw shifting sharply beneath his skin until it clicked.

Andromeda leaned back in her chair. "So, if the roles were reversed, would you allow yourself to go on holiday knowing that Ron or Hermione was in the hospital, and without ever checking in on them?"

Harry was silent then, his jaw beginning to tighten as he sat still, his teeth grinding together.

"It's okay to ask others to support you sometimes," Andromeda told him. "It's not selfish, nor is it an extraordinary demand. I don't quite know enough about you yet to know for certain, but it seems that you've grown accustomed to a level of care that is unacceptable. That doesn't always have to be the case." Her eyes flicked to her wrist. "We're approaching our full allotment of time for the day, so do you have any questions?"

Harry let out a sigh. "I don't think so."

She gave him a soft look. "I know it may not seem like it, but I really do think you're going to benefit from our time together," she said. "Opening up is never comfortable, but it's the only way that we can grow."

Andromeda stood then and Harry followed suit, his movements mechanical. She led them out of her office, stopping only to pick up a thin, leather-bound book from her desk.

"The next session should be one where we have slightly more productive results," she said in goodbye, before passing over the book gently into his hands. "This is the best introduction to Occlumency that I can offer. If you feel you can, it'd be helpful for you to read as much of this as you're able to, but it's not pivotally important." She gave him a parting smile. "Take care, Harry."

* * *

As time wound itself around the passing days since the meeting, Harry found Andromeda's points beginning to echo through the chambers of his thoughts. Certainly, moreso as with each passing hour Ron and Hermione did not visit.

His mind found itself, on occasion, catching against memories of years before. Of Ron not believing him about the Triwizard Tournament, or Hermione going behind his back to confiscate his broom. They did not bother him truly, as they'd never truly bothered him then, but they rankled more than they ever had before.

In truth though, all such thoughts did was darken his opinion of Andromeda. That she would doubt _Ron_ and _Hermione_ , of all people. The two people who had, without fail, supported him through the truly difficult parts of his time at Hogwarts. Basilisks and Werewolves and Voldemort, not little things like what Harry was going through then.

So, rather than just sit upon his irritation, he thought it far more useful to learn about Occlumency instead.

The central tenet of mind magic, Harry came to learn as he quickly absorbed every letter upon the pages of the book, was a clarity of thought. An odd thought, Harry pondered at first, given its purpose was precisely disclarity. To occlude was to disguise, to misdirect, after all. Yet, as the book explained, Legilmency was, just like all other magic, a test of will, though of a form that was entirely its own.

Within Charms, the contest was between a wizard's will and nature. To command the world to dance when it had, for years before, stood still. To silence that which was once deafening. To open a door that had been forever closed.

Equally, Transfiguration was a contest of will and nature, yet even more so. Transfiguration commanded magic to rewrite reality. To bring forth something from nothing, or to change a being entirely.

Defence and duelling were contests, their battles clear. Of those born equal, fighting to earn victory. Legilimency held its closest association to this form of magic, being that they were both contests when used at their fullest potential. That was where the parallels ended, though.

The art of the mind magics, said the very first page of the book, was the art of forming a battleground that would forever be tipped in your favour. Transfiguration could conjure unbreachable walls of flame, and Charms rob you of legs to stand upon, in time they would both fade. Fires could be snuffed out and Charms cancelled, but the mind, once won, would offer a weakness that one could always play upon.

A great Legilimens could rob a wizard of the knowledge of every spell he'd ever learned. He could shift a man's opinion completely without ever arising suspicion. He could plant terror into an enemy's mind, winning a battle years before it ever took place.

Yet, these aspirations would fade just as quickly as everything else, without a mind sharp enough to wield them.

It was an odd book, Harry thought, for a Healer to give to a patient. Yet, he found himself, to his own surprise, enraptured by every word that was written.

The beginning chapters, however, were distinctly more remedial. Beyond the first ideas, of meditating and quiet thought, there was something that Harry quickly found himself enraptured by.

As the body developed, and with it, the body's magic developed too, the body grew to learn to be able to channel magic through its every fibre, to maintain the internal energies that allowed for spellcasting and to take in the magic that imbued the very air that they all breathed, that connected them to the nature of the world around them.

His skin, just as it filtered and absorbed air and water, absorbed magic too. The air that met his lungs did not only bring oxygen.

Yet for almost everyone, this energy was funnelled and harnessed naturally in only one direction; the hands. That was why the magic a pendant could draw and conjure, despite channelling the energies of the heart that it sat atop of, would forever be weaker than what a wand could propagate. The hands reached out into the world; the most direct extension of a wizard's will.

And so, in order to perform mind magic, the body must first learn to channel magic through the mind, too. To allow the mind to be the conduit through which magical power is coalesced and concentrated.

There was no single, conformed method to do this, though. A small few were lucky enough to naturally channel their magic toward their mind, and so even their first cases of accidental magic were instances of mind magics. Some even took on a ritual to redirect their magic, though that restricted its fluidity.

For the vast majority, however, it was a gradual process. Of first learning to _feel_ their magic within them, ever-flowing and ever-moving, and to guide it upward from wherever they found it resided until it grew accustomed to passing through their minds. From there on they were capable of attempting the most basic of mind magics. Through this attempt, the pathway took route.

Upon Harry's first attempt, as he sat cross-legged and motionless upon his bed covers, he found the first step, of feeling his own magic, to come as naturally as breathing. He'd never stopped to consider it _truly_ , but his magic had always been within him, formless and yet perfectly tangible. As he breathed, the magic breathed. As he focused, so too did the magic.

Yet, as asked of his magic to rise within him, above his heart and lungs, and toward his mind, it grew utterly unresponsive, its obstinance striking. No matter how gentle his guiding hand grew to be, it would not move.

He grew wilful then, pushing rather than asking. Yet, the magic within him grew all too responsive. It moved, yet it moved everywhere. Downward as well as upward, bereft of focus or purpose.

Of all things, Harry knew that purposelessness would not be permitted to occur.

There was something he did not truly understand, he came to realise, but he was saved from finding exactly what by the intrusion of another. The knock on the door sounded louder in his state of heightened focus, causing him to nearly jump in place.

There was only one person it could be, though. Only one person knocked.

"Why are you reading?" Astoria asked after Harry welcomed her in. She looked healthier then, her skin brighter than it had been only a day ago. She still walked with a slight limp, though it was no worse than his own.

"Nothing else to do."

"I'm surprised you're capable is all," replied Astoria. "Thought an athlete like you would've cleared away the brain cells so that you could fly faster."

"Surprised you even know what Quidditch is."

Astoria laughed, high, shock glinting upon it. "They sometimes let me listen to the games on the wireless, but only on the days my delicate constitution can handle the excitement."

"Just listen to the Cannons. No excitement to be found there," he muttered, before frowning briefly. "What brings you here, anyway?"

She smirked. "I want to spend as much time with my favourite celebrity as possible."

Harry rolled his eyes, though no sooner did he than he found their focus shifted directly toward the door.

"So that might perhaps have been a lie," she said, her voice quieter already. "I'm sorry in advance."

This next guest did share her courtesy as, without any prompting, the door swung open swiftly revealing, to Harry's great surprise, Astoria's sister. Daphne Greengrass.

Silently, Astoria stood and walked toward her sister, her head dipped slightly. Daphne was silent too, her eyes tracing her sister's path until she left the Adolescent Ward with one final, apologetic look toward Harry before shutting the door behind her.

Leaving, for the first time to Harry's knowledge, him alone with Daphne Greengrass.

"I don't know what your intentions are with my sister," said Daphne, her voice no more than a whisper, yet its intent was unmistakable. Her eyes found him, and with her every effort, she threatened to cut through him. "Though if you hurt her, there is nothing in this world that I would stop at to repay the favour twice over. Understood?"

And, in spite of the unwavering force that was Daphne, Harry did not budge.

"I have no 'intentions' with your sister," Harry told her, his spine held achingly straight. "We talk to each other occasionally. That's all."

They commiserated in shared misfortune, before anything else.

Daphne's gaze dipped briefly, with a slow shake of her head. "I don't care about that," she said, her voice still ever quiet. "I know the sorts of things that you get up to, and I know that all they would bring to Astoria is pain. You will not, ever, hurt my sister."

Harry found himself mouthing 'sorts of things' for a moment; he stopped the moment he realised what he was doing. "I don't think I'm capable of that."

"You're more than capable of hurting her. Even if you never intend to, you'll still end up doing it," she told him. "My sister doesn't need you in her life. She's perfectly fine without you."

Harry's eyes grew thin. "Is that not hers to decide?"

"Not when I am protecting her, it isn't," Daphne said. She reached behind her to open the door, righteous fury playing on her face. "Just don't. My family's world doesn't require you."

She shot out of the room the moment she finished, the door slamming shut and leaving Harry in her wake. He looked down to the book he'd found his mind had been enraptured by and picked it up once more, the confusion he'd been left in allowing a confused clarity to bloom within his mind's eye.

Not another sound met his ears for hours, nor another thought except the ones born of the pages he read. It didn't rain until mid-afternoon, and then, only briefly. By which time, Harry had finally, mercifully, drifted into a deep, unbroken sleep.

He didn't dream. He hadn't for a while, and he doubted that any that came to be in St Mungo's Hospital were ones he held any desire of having, either.


End file.
